THE TEACHING OF ELEMENTARY COMPOSITION
A wise musician has drawn attention to the fact that music has a more
important educational function than any foreign language, being a common
language for the expression of emotion, imaginative power, and rhythmic
feeling. He went on to say that, as a training, it is of use from the
very earliest years, and for all classes of the community.
If we agree with this view--and it is encouraging to note the increasing
number of those who do so--we must so organize the musical education of
children that a time comes when they will be ready to 'express
themselves' in music in the same way in which they can express
themselves in their native tongue.
An earlier chapter in this book has dealt with the teaching of
extemporizing, first, treated as vocal expression, then as instrumental.
When a class of children has arrived at the stage of being able to
extemporize a tune of sixteen bars, in any given key and time, and
introducing given modulations, it is quite ready to begin the more
formal study of composition, and to be initiated into the mysteries of
form. Hitherto the experiments of the class in this direction have been
chiefly spontaneous; the teacher has of set design left the child who is
extemporizing as free as possible, but the time has now come for a new
'window' to be opened in its mind.
A preliminary talk should be given on the need of form in music. It must
be pointed out that we cannot be intelligible without it, that it is not
enough to have a language at our command; we must have _shape_ in order
to convey our ideas to others. The child should realize that the great
artists in all the arts are under the same necessity as the youngest
beginner in composition. Inspiration must be embodied in a definite
form, or others cannot share the vision of beauty.
For a time the child now has to learn to select a musical form, then to
choose a musical thought which can be fitly expressed in it. It will
seem a cramping process after the freedom of extemporizing, but the
child who loves the work will willingly submit to the discipline. It
cannot be too often impressed on the young teacher that children as a
whole _like_ discipline. They despise those who are indifferent to it,
and give a ready submission to those who expect it, provided they feel
sure of an underlying sympathy.
The first lessons in form should consist of the analysis of simple
tunes, preferably of the Folk Song type. The forms known as AB, ABA, and
the variants derived from these will be explained, and the class will
write examples of each, at first not harmonizing the melodies, but
afterwards doing so. The old dance forms will then be taken. At this
stage it is absolutely necessary for those of the class who are musical,
and who wish to give a little extra time to music, to go through a
course of strict harmony and counterpoint; endless time will be wasted
if they do not do so. The work will be very much lightened because of
the foundation already laid, for, without knowing it, the children have
been doing a little free counterpoint for some time, when they added
vocal parts to a given melody, and their knowledge of practical harmony
will make it possible for them to take many a short cut in the formal
work.
The dance forms, together with very simple fugues and contrapuntal
studies, and a few 'free' exercises in songs and short pieces, will be
as far as the majority of children will get in the study of composition.
But there will always be a few in each class who will be eager and able
to go farther, and to begin the study of sonata form. For such children,
and certainly for all teachers of music, there can be no better
text-book than Hadow's _Sonata Form_, published in the Novello Primer
Series. This book is often described as 'more exciting than a novel'!
Somervell's Charts for Harmony and Counterpoint are also most valuable,
and will save the necessity of a text-book in these subjects--at any
rate for the beginner, who works under guidance.
There is one curious fact about all but the most musical children when
they begin to _write down_ tunes of their own composition. They make
mistakes which they have never made when _extemporizing_ the same type
of tune. This seems to arise from the fact that they suddenly feel
self-conscious--they have more time to think when writing than when
singing or playing, and are inclined to compose one bar at a time
instead of phrase by phrase. They will produce a tune of seven
bars--they will end on a weak beat--they will come to a full stop in the
middle of an eight-bar tune on the tonic chord, root at the top--the
last half of the tune will have nothing to do with the first half. We
could write a page of their possible mistakes!
The cure for these lapses is to insist on the tunes being sung before
being written. The old unconscious habit will then assert itself, and
the little tunes will fall into shape.
It is a useful lesson to get a class to criticize all original tunes
when played by the young composer. For one thing, the criticism of our
contemporaries often carries more weight than that of our elders; and
for another, the practice arouses the critical faculty, and teaches the
children to listen keenly, for they have not the written tune in front
of them.
After a little practice quite good criticisms will be given by children.
They will notice such points as a weak scheme of keys--undue repetition
of the chief melody--a clumsy modulation--a trite ending--an
over-laboured sequence--a tendency to borrow ideas from others, and so
on.
This training will be of the greatest possible value to them later on in
the concert-room. As a writer in _The Times_ once put it:
'The vague impressions which are all that many people carry away from
the concert-room would be replaced by definite experiences.
* * * * *
'Mental analysis is not, of course, the main object in listening to
music, but it is a most powerful aid to full appreciation. It is the
failure to perceive any definite relation between the parts and the
whole that baffles so many people, and sends them away from the
concert-room remarking that they cannot understand "classical" music.'